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So I working to restock my tank. I want to get Moorii Red Rainbows. So the question is do I order 10 for a online retailer and 10 more from another so that i have a group of 20. Or do i find a group of 20 from 1 retailer?

So I working to restock my tank. I want to get Moorii Red Rainbows. So the question is do I order 10 for a online retailer and 10 more from another so that i have a group of 20. Or do i find a group of 20 from 1 retailer?

I had good luck with Reserve Stock Cichlids. My Katotos did come in a bit small but they grew up very fast and now have great color. I feed primarily NLS and some spirlina flake. But Reserve Stock was awesome and you can't beat the price

OH, get 25 from one source. At least you know the strain has a better chance of being pure. I had 3 die off over the last 4ish months so order at least 5 more than you want to eventually have in the tank. If you get them small the sex ratio has a better chance of working out naturally.

I would advise you to get groups from separate sources to increase the genetic diversity of your group. Often when purchasing juvis from a single source you're getting siblings and/or otherwise related fish. Getting fish from mixed blood will produce higher quality offspring that will fetch a higher price down the road. I have no problems buying f2 fish if the parents come from mixed blood.

Also, buying fish young has no relation to the ratio "working out naturally"

I would advise you to get groups from separate sources to increase the genetic diversity of your group. Often when purchasing juvis from a single source you're getting siblings and/or otherwise related fish. Getting fish from mixed blood will produce higher quality offspring that will fetch a higher price down the road. I have no problems buying f2 fish if the parents come from mixed blood.

Also, buying fish young has no relation to the ratio "working out naturally"

Can of worms

Just a couple points and food for thought.

I understand the theory to get groups from different sources, it would defiantly increase the bio diversity of your offspring. However it has been my understanding that "red rainbow" has been used as a blanket term for several different sub species or groups from around the lake. If one of the goals of your tropheus keeping is not to hybridize the sub species then pulling from one F1 source would be advisable. If you want to bio diversify the fish to get a superior genetic strain, why not just cross red rainbows and 3 other different rainbows that might interbreed? That would be very genetically diverse! This is where we run into problems with the F2 generation. How do you keep a genetic pool with a good bio diversity and keep as close to a natural strain as you find in the lake itself? I don't have a good explanation for this unless you can find two breeders that have two groups from the same exact part of the lake. However I do know that the price of a fish I find online or at my LFS has little to do with its "biodiversity." What I have noticed is that wild caught adults fetch high prices, F1 have lower prices and I haven't seen anyone advertise F2 generations. So the fact that a genetically diverse F2 would fetch higher prices with the possibility of it not being a natural strain is questionable. If your goal is to bread them for profit buy a wild caught group.

Secondly... working out naturally. The sexuality of fish is not like the sexuality of human beings or even mammals for that matter. We humans are born, for the most part, as either male or female. Fish, sexual maturation is a bit more interesting. It has been documented that many species of fish are sequentially hermaphroditic, meaning that they will actually change sex after maturation given the right environmental circumstances, mostly having to do with the availability of opposite sex partners. This being true, it has also been theorized that during sexual maturation of a fish in a group that these environmental factors play into how many fish become male and how many become female. I have come across several accounts where people have had better "luck" with their Tropheus ratios working out from getting young fry. I believe that this "luck" has more to do with environmental factors contributing to the number of males and females than just being a random occurrence. That being said there may still be some males that should be pulled from the group, or you could just let nature take is course. It should be noted that the fighting between the males my overstress the fish and make them more acceptable to diseases.

So these are just my thoughts on these subjects... not an attack just opinions. I do however, not like the idea of being called out and quoted. But ill let that go

I understand the theory to get groups from different sources, it would defiantly increase the bio diversity of your offspring. However it has been my understanding that "red rainbow" has been used as a blanket term for several different sub species or groups from around the lake. If one of the goals of your tropheus keeping is not to hybridize the sub species then pulling from one F1 source would be advisable. If you want to bio diversify the fish to get a superior genetic strain, why not just cross red rainbows and 3 other different rainbows that might interbreed? That would be very genetically diverse! This is where we run into problems with the F2 generation. How do you keep a genetic pool with a good bio diversity and keep as close to a natural strain as you find in the lake itself? I don't have a good explanation for this unless you can find two breeders that have two groups from the same exact part of the lake. However I do know that the price of a fish I find online or at my LFS has little to do with its "biodiversity." What I have noticed is that wild caught adults fetch high prices, F1 have lower prices and I haven't seen anyone advertise F2 generations. So the fact that a genetically diverse F2 would fetch higher prices with the possibility of it not being a natural strain is questionable. If your goal is to bread them for profit buy a wild caught group.

Secondly... working out naturally. The sexuality of fish is not like the sexuality of human beings or even mammals for that matter. We humans are born, for the most part, as either male or female. Fish, sexual maturation is a bit more interesting. It has been documented that many species of fish are sequentially hermaphroditic, meaning that they will actually change sex after maturation given the right environmental circumstances, mostly having to do with the availability of opposite sex partners. This being true, it has also been theorized that during sexual maturation of a fish in a group that these environmental factors play into how many fish become male and how many become female. I have come across several accounts where people have had better "luck" with their Tropheus ratios working out from getting young fry. I believe that this "luck" has more to do with environmental factors contributing to the number of males and females than just being a random occurrence. That being said there may still be some males that should be pulled from the group, or you could just let nature take is course. It should be noted that the fighting between the males my overstress the fish and make them more acceptable to diseases.

So these are just my thoughts on these subjects... not an attack just opinions. I do however, not like the idea of being called out and quoted. But ill let that go

I concur on the idea of possibly hybridizing different strains of said "Red Rainbows". I fell into this diverse trap with my first group of dubs and ordered another small group of Maswa from a member here, as soon as I put them in I could immediately tell that all said Maswa are NOT created equal. (The member who sold them to me were way BETTER than the ones I had) (Kinda why I didn't mind giving them away in the first place...shhhh don't tell my father n law) Tropheus are like a box of chocolates, you never know what your gonna get. Those of you interested in selling some quality fry, please buy/obtain wild species.

(Just to reiterate my point here, if you are gonna get 2 different groups of the same species, get 2 different groups of the same species/collection point)

So these are just my thoughts on these subjects... not an attack just opinions. I do however, not like the idea of being called out and quoted. But ill let that go

Well...this IS a forum, and people get quoted all the time. It's better than being misquoted. Sorry bud

RR's are collected from a few different collection points. While they have different collection points, they're not different sub species, they're all T. moorii. Any respectable breeder of wild fish will know the collection point of their RR's. If they didn't, I would pass on purchasing them. All you need to do at this point is find other breeders of the same collection point. This won't be a problem as RR's are EVERYWHERE!

As far as growing juvis and ratios, I will continue to heartily disagree with you. I have grown groups out and ended up with all males, all females, and everything in between. If you took them all and averaged it out I would think it's approx 50/50. But hey, to each their own

I'm looking for f1 or show. I'm not looking for a working group right now. Cichlid breeding is alot of work I just want to watch a pretty tank of trophes. If they breed great. I'm not going to do anything special with fry. My breeding days are behind me. I thought "red ranbow" was a genric name for the fish. I guess there is more studing for me to get the fish I want. But thank you for your information. I enjoyed you discussion that made me think about what fish to buy.